Brisbane’s pop-punk upstarts Two Times Shy are soaring lofty heights as they let loose their …
We’ve been telling you for months now, you NEED to get behind The Bifters.
MORE: DUNE RATS: Dance Lessons and Thinking Outside The Box REVIEWS: DUNE RATS: Real Rare Whale // THE INTERRUPTERS: In The Wild // WAAX: At Least I’m Free // I PREVAIL: True Power // PARKWAY DRIVE: Darker Still // STRAY FROM THE PATH: Euthanasia // THE BIFTERS: Reefer Madness
The Sydney-based band recently dropped their debut full-length, Reefer Madness. We were lucky enough to give it an early spin (review here!) and even luckier to chat with the band’s drummer Gus Hart. We dug into the record, how it came together and more.
Hysteria: What’s The Bifter’s backstory?
Gus: The Bifters came together a few years ago as a passion project. We’ve morphed into a heavier version of ourselves these days, but we started as a tongue-in-cheek blues rock band. We wanted to bring back that old-school attitude and mix it with a new-age rock sound. It turned into a doom sound, which we’ve developed after a couple of years of writing and recording.
Run us through the concept of the record.
It’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek, satirical poke at the failed war on cannabis. And all the bullshit marijuana users and campaigners went through back in the day. We went through the record and developed a different reefer-based character for each song. Dan Thrax Illustration provided artwork on each track too. They’ll come out with the vinyl as a booklet.
The songs are also littered with cult classic stoner movies and audio from reefer madness propaganda from back in the day. It’s a pretty fun listen from start to finish. Not many bands do the concept record anymore, so we wanted to pay tribute to the bands of the past who did. And we wanted something cool that we could look back on and be proud of.
The unique thing about The Bifters is we enjoy drifting between different types of rock and blues and doom in each song. Our live show is a journey. We’re excited to get out there and shred. [Gus Hart]
How excited are you to be on tour?
We took a bit of a break from shows after recording the album. We were getting ready for the tour and developed an interesting set. It traverses the genres of blues, rock and heavier stuff.
The unique thing about The Bifters is we enjoy drifting between different types of rock and blues and doom in each song. Our live show is a journey. We’re excited to get out there and shred.
Who are some bands you’d love to share the stage with?
Unrealistically, Clutch or Black Sabbath. On the Sydney scene, there are a few bands we’d like to play with, like Papa Pilko And The Binrats. We’ve loved them for ages. Queens of the Stone Age would be good too.
What’s next?
We’ve booked a 12-stop tour all by ourselves and have some epic supports along the way. We’re proud of it and want to smash it out. We’re applying for every festival under the sun. We’d love to play an event like Halloween Hysteria too.
We’re a niche sound for the current market, but we’d love to get our foot in the door. We’re ready to bring the roof down, and we have the live show to go with it. We plan to jump back into the studio and record a new EP too.
Purchase and stream here.
